When I first moved to Tucson I used Twitter to find people. And it’s been a boon. I ended up meeting a lot of great tech people and got some contract work out of it. One of things I enjoyed the most was called Tech Tuesday. A group of IT geeks would get together at a local coffee shop on Tuesday morning’s. It was a sort of test for freelancers or those who could make their schedules flexible. We eventually shifted it to Thursdays. As more people started to join in they started to complain about the time and place and wanted to start meeting in the evening for drinks. I went along with it but I already meet for drinks with other tech groups. So why do another?

I like the coffee meetups. It’s different than going to a bar. It’s not as noisy and you could have good conversations. The people that co-opted Tech Tuesday are nice smart people and worth knowing but their idea of a meetup is different. It’s less organic than the Tech Tuesday. I’ll probably start up the Tech Tuesday again. 

 
I’ve also decided not to friend everyone on all the same social networks. If I want to kvetch about something, however minor, I can’t do it. Fortunately, LiveJournal is one of the few that isn’t like that. And those few that are on LJ and on Facebook and/or Twitter won’t care because it’s not directed at them.